The therapeutic use of bodily cooling and heating systems, respectively, is ever-increasing. Hypothermia may occur for a variety of reasons, including exposure to cold environments, or complex surgical procedures.
During surgery, a patient typically experiences mild hypothermia as a result of the effect of general anesthesia on the body's thermoregulatory system and prolonged exposure of internal organs. Mild hypothermia in a surgical patient has been thought to prolong the time to extubation, contribute to coagulopathies, increase the chance of infection, and increase cardiac demand as a result of shivering. In such procedures, controlled patient warming may be of therapeutic benefit.
Hyperthermia may occur as a result of stroke, cardiac arrest and head trauma. In such cases it is now accepted that rapid cooling can yield significant therapeutic benefits. Specifically, research indicates that even though a stroke or cardiac arrest victim's brain cells may lose their ability to function, the cells do not necessarily die quickly. In fact, brain damage from a stroke or cardiac arrest may take hours to reach maximum effect. Neurological damage may be reduced and the stroke or cardiac arrest victims' outcome improved if a neuroprotectant therapy is applied within this time frame.
Similarly, elements in the genesis of a traumatic brain injury (e.g., resulting from falls, vehicular accidents and the like) are now understood to overlap with elements in the genesis of neurological damage in stroke victims. In particular, delayed secondary injury at the cellular level after the initial head trauma is now recognized as a measured contributing factor to the ultimate tissue loss that occurs after brain injury. Again, neurologic damage may be reduced if a neuroprotectant therapy is rapidly applied. Further, in this regard, studies have shown that treatment with mild hypothermia, defined as lowering core body temperature at 2-3 C° confers neuroprotection in stroke victims, and may hasten the neurologic recovery and improve outcomes when applied for 12-72 hours in cases of traumatic head injury. Again, to optimize such therapies, the neuro-protective therapy should be initiated as soon as possible after a stroke or traumatic head injury.
As reflected by the foregoing, significant therapeutic benefits may be realized through the use of bodily cooling and heating systems. In turn, systems which offer enhanced operational features are of particular interest as cooling/heating therapy modalities continue to evolve.